Doctors seeing increase in patients with the flu

BATON ROUGE – Doctors are seeing an uptick in patients with the flu this time of year in Baton Rouge.

Dr. Mindy Calandro, of the Baton Rouge Clinic, said that she has seen more cases of the flu in the past two to three weeks. She also says that even children who received the flu shot are still getting sick, however their symptoms are milder.

"I've certainly seen a spectrum. I've had as young as a four months old come in with the flu in the past two weeks all the way up to my teenagers," Calandro said. "

Calandro said that the virus, spread easily through sneezing and coughing, seems to be getting passed along to family members after one member initially gets it.

"It's kind of really across the board that we're seeing it, we're seeing a lot kind of go through families and everybody kind of goes down the line of getting it," she said.

Although it is considered the peak of flu season, doctors say that it is not too late to get a flu shot.

"Our flu vaccine this year protects against four strains of the flu and so when you have the flu virus you typically just have one of the strains. So the flu vaccine will still provide you the protection from the three other strains," Calandro said.

For children who already have the flu, doctors say that they should not go to school and instead get plenty of rest along with drinking plenty of fluids.

Calandro says that she has been seeing a lot of flu-like symptoms too since the temperature has been changing from cool to warm.

"With these temperatures being warmer it's tough because I'm still seeing a lot of children with just your regular allergy symptoms but flu, you will know; flu is very different because fever is the hallmark of the flu virus," she said.